Sunday, December 2, 2007

Name of Toy Line: Battle Beasts Super DeformedProduction Company: TakaraDistributor: Takara and MeijiYears of Production:Countries/Regions Available: JapanSize/Scale: Approximately 1"Figure Trade Markings: TKRApproximate # of Figures: 60Details: Once all three series of Beastformers (JP)/Battle Beasts(US/UK) were realesed in Japan twenty were chosen to be recreated as miniaturized figures, a mono-colored, super-deformed version of the original, complete with heat sensitive rub!

As cool as the original figures are there's something even more appealing about super deformed 'keshi' versions:

Each figure came with a weapon attached but strangely this was not the correct weapon. Was it an error? An oversight by Takara?

No - it was a marketing ploy to encourage purchasing more beasts. Various games could be played with these figures, one of which involved your beast having more power ('miracle victory power' no less!) if your figure had the correct weapon! Luckily each figure bore a number 1-20 on it's back and the correct weapon bore this same number.

Super Deformed Battle Beasts were available from gumball machines or given away in candy boxes.

The 'Meiji' (a popular candy producer in Japan) boxes pictured above came in various designs, one had a handy chart showing each figure available:

Many different box designs were available and each pack came with gold colored trading/game cards bearing pictures of the beasts. Around 38 cards were available but sadly only twenty Super Deformed Beasts were released. At least we have images of what could have been....

Finally here's a look at a few BBSDs perched snuggly on top of pencils.